Chapter 27-29 Summary

Hughes and Cross receive another tip from Hughes's contact at the newspaper. Cross travels to meet a vampire expert at the University of California.

Paul Westin dresses the part of a vampire expert, in all purple and black. Westin describes vampire clubs along the west coast and around the world. He claims they operate with more than 100,000 members worldwide.

Cross admits to Westin that he remains skeptical about the vampire culture. Westin explains about pranic energies, which attract vampires to certain types of people. To drink the blood of someone is to absorb his or her pranic energy. Cross, Westin observes, possess great pranic energy.

Westin offers a psychological profile of a real vampire, as apposed to a role-playing vampire. A real vampire acts needy, manipulative and immoral. However, he claims they have no more occurrence of criminal activity than regular...